


I Missed You

by lar_laughs



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode: s03e10 The Return Part 1, Episode: s03e11 The Return Part 2, Episode: s03e12 Echoes, F/M, just kiss her already
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-03
Updated: 2011-04-03
Packaged: 2017-10-17 11:55:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/176620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lar_laughs/pseuds/lar_laughs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While Ronon and Elizabeth could admit to themselves that they missed each other when there was the possibility of never being in the same universe again, being able to say that to the other is difficult.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Missed You

**Author's Note:**

> Set after _The Return 1 &2_ and at the beginning _Echoes_. This was going to be unrequited but Elizabeth just kept at it, like a dog at a bone.

Elizabeth couldn't figure out if she was excited or not to be back on Atlantis. This was definitely home, as her time back on Earth had proven, but _excited_ wasn't exactly the word she would use. People kept stopping her in the halls, thanking her for helping to get them back to the city, telling her how excited they were to get back to work. It felt false to mimic the emotion back to them, her smile feeling false.

Part of her unease was Ronon's continued frown. She'd hoped for something other than this silence whenever she walked into the room or a casual shrug if she tried to ask him a direct question. The Satedan was not happy to see her so how could she be excited to be back? All she wanted to do was curl up in the corner and cry but she'd done enough of that back on Earth. Now was the time to be strong. If he didn't want her... but that thought made her throat close back up with unshed tears.

Unpacking her clothes took only slightly less time than it took to get her knick knacks all set up in her office. Between the two rooms, she was completely moved back in with just a little under half an hour before dinner to spare. She'd agreed to meet John in the Mess Hall, trying not to see the knowing look in his eyes. How he understood her as well as he did was a mystery because she was still trying to figure out exactly what made John Sheppard tick. The man was an enigma; every time she thought she had him figured out, he'd do something to throw off her previous estimations. He seemed to have her figured out, no matter that she felt she'd done a good job of keeping her burgeoning feelings for Ronon a tightly guarded secret.

To eat or not to eat? She could very well tell him she'd forgotten about her commitment to eating with him. He'd certainly forgotten about many of their meetings over the years, conveniently letting them slip his mind if they didn't merge with his other plans well enough.

She let out a breath of defeat at the knock at her office door. This was probably John now, come to make sure she kept her promise. "I see you didn't trust me to-"

But John wasn't on the other side of the door. It was Ronon, glaring into her space as if she was harboring Asuran fugitives that might be intent of harming the city all over again. It took every bit of her training not to run back to her chair so that the large desk was between them. Instead, she raised an eyebrow and set her lips into a thin line.

"Can I help you?" Even to her own jaded ears, it sounded like she was treating him like a stranger. No, worse than that. A vagabond who didn't belong anywhere near her office. That hadn't been the tone she'd been aiming for but there was no way she could take it back now. She would just have to suffer through the strained silence and hope that he decided to leave quickly.

He walked into the room instead of turning around and walked back the way he came. With only the barest of glances around the room, he came to a halt right in front of her. Their bodies were within touching distance if either of them cared to put a hand out. Thankfully, Elizabeth had tracked his progress so she didn't have to adjust the tilt of her head when he came to a standstill.

"I came to see if you needed any help."

For the life of her, Elizabeth couldn't think of a single reason why Ronon might need to help her. "With what?"

Another infernal shrug. "Just thought you might needed something lifted or moved or something. Just... help."

"No. Everything is in place. They didn't really have time to move things around."

"Okay."

He didn't seem ready to move but she had to get away from him. It was a show of weakness but she pivoted and walked to her desk, not hiding behind it but leaning against it. She crossed her arms over her chest, aware that they were shaking almost too much to be of any use.

"Thank you for the offer. It was very kind of you."

His body didn't shift when hers did so he was still looking at where she'd been and not at where she was when he started talking again. It was odd, like being outside of the time stream. "Just wanted you to know that I missed you."

"You did?" Her eyes misted over and she had to struggle to keep a sob from erupting but before she could get a word out, he had turned around and was out the door.

***

"It didn't work," Ronon growled fifteen minutes later when he found Sheppard lounging in his usual chair in the Mess Hall. He'd had all this time to think about the empty look in Elizabeth's eyes and let his anger fester so that it had more of a hold of him than the pain of rejection. As he hit his hands against the hard surface of the table, leaning all his weight against them as he loomed over Sheppard, he let the anger pulse through him. Let it burn until it was white-hot and terrifying to anyone that saw it.

It certainly made Sheppard react. His face was screwed up into a question as he struggled to get his chair onto all four legs again. "What didn't work."

"I told her. I actually told her." That was the rub. He'd listened to Sheppard only because he'd been trying so hard to forget about the sting he'd felt when he'd realized that he was never going to see Elizabeth again. He'd worked through that feeling, coming to a place of reasonable contentment where his heart didn't hurt quite so much. Then he would have been able to go forward with his life as if she had never existed for him. But she came back with that smile that had stripped away all the healing he thought had been more than just on the surface. He'd laid himself bare to her and she rejected him. It would have been easier to have never seen her again.

"What happened? Ronon, tell me what happened. Don't just growl at me."

But that was the only sound he could make. The pain only had one word, one sound, one way of getting out. Try as he might, he couldn't get his jaw to unclench. She had left him. She had gone. She had come back... but she hadn't come back to him. With a shout of rage, he pushed against the table so that it went flying, taking Sheppard with it. He didn't wait to see the damage he caused, stomping out of the Mess Hall and to the parts of Atlantis where he would be left alone until he was ready for human contact once again.

***

John gave him some space but Ronon knew he had to go back and apologize for his abrupt manner and lack of words. The one thing they had agreed on early on was that Ronon would at least try to communicate with words. Everything else could be hashed out with banto sticks in the gym but John needed to know the _why_ before he would allow himself to be bruised and beaten. Now that the hurt was less sharp, Ronon thought that he could talk about it. It had been stupid to search Sheppard out before he'd broken down the sharp pain of the emotion into smaller elements that he could contain. Part of his early training had been in portioning out a problem into the base parts. It was easier to come at an enemy (or any problem, for that matter) when he understood their motivation.

It was clear that Elizabeth had no feelings for him. He needed to move on now that he'd had a few days to grieve. She wasn't his type, after all. Her type was more like Sheppard - smooth and full of just the right thing to say in every situation. He also cleaned up well, looking every inch the the military leader when he had his dress uniform on. Ronon never even tried to dress up, knowing the Satedan military garb no longer suited his position and refusing any of the Tau'ri clothing that had been pushed on him over the years. He was still Satedan. He wouldn't forget his roots again.

He decided to give a wide berth to any of the rooms that would be most likely to be filled with people, not willing to put on a show for any of them. In this frame of mind, he couldn't be Sheppard's trained monkey.

That thought brought a flash of memory. Rodney chuckling as he told a story about a group of scientists who were wanting to know what he was working on and how he'd lured them away from the real objective by using a group of students as bait, making the men think that he was helping the children with a much lesser project when really they were just cover for what would turn out to be his first paper that was given an award.

"My own bevy of trained monkeys," he'd crowed.

He and Teyla hadn't understood the reference so he'd had to explain what a monkey was and why you would want to train them in the first place. Teyla had understood the humor in the story at last and had laughed along with Rodney and John. He never had but hadn't wanted to admit defeat so had tried to laugh along as well.

Later, Teyla had found references from Sateda to help him understand what exactly the story had meant. He still didn't think it was funny but the first time someone had called him Sheppard's trained monkey, he hadn't immediately taken offense. Maybe he was. There wasn't much else he was good for here in Atlantis but there was a less likely chance of finding anywhere else to belong. Sateda was lost and, along with it, his life. No reason to go back. All he had at the moment was the choice to move forward or stagnate. There were worse things to be than John Sheppard's trained monkey.

"Ronon?"

He turned to looked at Teyla, surprised that he'd made his way through the halls of Atlantis until he stood before her quarters. The door had opened and she stood in the doorway. "Hey."

"Did you need something?"

"Don't think so. Getting a little stir-crazy being stuck here on the city after having the fields to wander through." Because he'd never slept. After the exodus off Atlantis, he'd never been able to close his eyes for more than a few hours at a time and then it had never been the kind of sleep that would have done him any good. He'd eventually given up trying.

She gave him a look of compassion, her own eyes ringed with fatigue. "Would it help to talk about it?"

"Does it ever?" he asked before he walked away. No use pulling her deeper into his bad mood than she already was. This was something he had to deal with on his own.

 

***

"Zalenka wants to go to the mainland. I'm giving you first dibs to go with him."

They still hadn't talked about what happened in the Mess Hall or with Elizabeth but Ronon was tired of trying to hold everything in. For one thing, it wasn't working and for another, he felt horrible for bringing Sheppard into this when it was his own damn mess. It should be something he dealt with on his own, not dragging his few friends into the dark void where his heart should have been.

"Ronon? Did you hear me?"

Ronon moved from the doorway, flipping the chair in front of Sheppard's desk so he could straddle it. Every bit of protection he could find helped and a chair back was just as good as a guarded expression when it came to these talks with Sheppard.

"Heard you. Why should I go?"

"It'll get you... away from Atlantis for a few days. I would think that would be well worth it." Sheppard leaned back, his hands linked behind his head, as he continued to watch Ronon with eyes that missed little. "Besides, Zalenka likes you. You seem to put up with his ramblings more than most people."

"Don't understand a thing the little man says."

"Yeah, but you don't talk over him or walk out of the room." He put up a hand to stop whatever it was that Ronon was about to say. "You don't walk out of the room any more than you would with any one else. Look, do you want to do this or not?"

It would be nice to get some time away from Atlantis without having to resort to running away like a child in the midst of a temper tantrum. Some time and space would give him the chance to get things straight in his head and heart. "I'll do it."

***

While Elizabeth realized that Ronon hadn't been around lately, she didn't have time to fully realize just how much she missed him until she saw him striding through the halls. All she seemed to do lately was miss him. There was never a chance in her schedule to seek him out, to tell him exactly what she should have said to him that day in her office.

The real problem was that she didn't know what she would have said. What she should have said was something along the lines of being so busy running the city that she didn't have much time for a personal life. She needed to let him down easy. It was what he deserved.

"Ronon?" The words were out of her mouth the moment she saw him in the hall. For the first time since she'd arrived back on Atlantis, he wasn't surrounded by people and she'd spoken without thinking. It was so unlike her that she wasn't sure what to do next. When he turned around, she tried saying something but, once again, nothing came out. There had been a touch of hope in his expression as he'd turned around but it was leeching out of his eyes a she stood by, silent.

"Teyla's expecting me."

"Please. Could I have a few moments of your time?"

He nodded, something that surprised her considering she was coming off as cold and indifferent yet again. They met each other halfway, each of them giving up their distance so that this was a mutual thing. The few seconds it took gave her time to come up with several things she wanted to say, things she wanted him to understand.

"I don't have a lot of time."

"Neither do I," he growled, his eyes narrowing as he struggled to hold back anything further. She could see what the silence was costing him but at least he was still here.

"No, that's not what I meant. I just meant that I don't have a lot of time to spend on a relationship. I have this city to run and that often means I'm busy at odd times of the day. It's just not conducive to something more than friendship and, even then, that is difficult. I just don't-"

"I'm not asking for a relationship," he interrupted, giving the word the same emphasis that she had.

She was perplexed because if it wasn't a relationship he wanted, what had that display in her office been about? Instead of taking a step back, she lifted her chin higher to mask her confusion. "Then what did you mean when you said you missed me?"

"Just that. I missed you. Thought you should know."

"And I missed you. More than I thought I would." A chuckle escaped even though she tried to pull it back once it got lose. "You've wormed your way under my skin like a huge parasite."

A smile tugged at the side of Ronon's mouth. "I'm thinking I should say _thank you_. Never been compared to a bug. Not that I know of, at least. I like the idea of being under your skin. That way you can't shake me loose."

The idea of Ronon as a bug that burrowed under her skin was both funny and titillating at the same time. She wasn't sure if she should laugh or shiver in anticipation so she did both. "So, you don't want a relationship?"

"I'm not asking for hours of your time, Elizabeth." The way he said her name made her knees weak but she stayed upright by sheer willpower. "Just... more. More than what we have now."

"Perhaps dinner tonight?"

"Definitely dinner tonight." He didn't have far to bend down to touch his lips with hers, sealing the deal with a promise that this might actually work out.


End file.
